1
i remember Japanese construction
workers at a noodle bar
joking with the queer foreigner
who talked like a child
and didn’t get what word
they were trying to teach
when all they wanted to hear
was an audible slurp
2
I don’t eat anything
without a face she said
however blank or fanciful
it must have personality
like a tomato that bites
back she said
and hugged
herself tighter
a black leather coat
draped over her bones
3
they say if you eat chanterelles
in the dark of the moon
you gain the power to hear
what the worms are whispering
they say if you drink ginseng tea
you’ll have very expensive piss
they say if you’re starving
you can eat the inner bark of trees
but i feed the serpent in my gut
nothing but eggs
4
i’ll have
the usual
delectable products
of animal misery
comfort food
isn’t it
6
Goya’s two old people
eating soup at the Prado
a year after the death
of the butcher
of Guernica
and 12-year-old me shocked
at the potential horror
in something so primordial
learning how wholly consumption
can consume us